Tuesday, 29 June 2010

Four Northumberland Gardens

On Sunday there was a rare opportunity to see four secret gardens in Northumberland, all open to the public in aid of five local churches.

Each of the gardens was uniquely different; the most modern was at Stanton Fence, north of Morpeth. It was designed by Arabella Weir who won the award for Best Garden in Show at Chelsea in 1996. Between 1998 and 2005 she created a three-acre garden at Stanton Fence which is both beautiful in itself, such as here in the cottage garden ...

... and intimately in keeping with its rural setting such as here, where a path from the formal garden leads to surrounding meadows ...

Whalton Manor dates from the 17th century but was substantially altered by the architect Sir Edward Lutyens in 1908.

The south front of Whalton Manor

Lutyens, helped by Gertrude Jekyll, also created a beautiful three acre garden in the old walled garden which includes summer houses and herbaceous borders ...

Meldon Park, built by the Newcastle architect John Dobson in 1832, has superb views of the Wansbeck valley and is surrounded by parkland and woods. In the kitchen garden there was a wide range of fruit, vegetables, salad crops and many fine roses, all originally grown in the garden during the 1800's ...

The final garden at Garden Cottage, Bolam, was modern, artistic and filled with unusual plants ...

Welcome ...

... and thank you for visiting my blog, describing my wildlife wanderings in Northumberland and elsewhere. I do hope you will find my observations interesting.

Living in retirement in Redesdale, Northumberland, in the midst of England's wild and remote border country with Scotland, I find much in the beautiful countryside surrounding my home to interest me. The greater part of my observations will be about natural history but if the landscape, history or traditions of a place I visit inspires, I might well write about it too.